MOSCOW, December 8 (RAPSI) – The State Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal, Commercial and Procedural Legislation has recommended that the lower house adopt a bill to approve community work for minor corruption cases, RIA Novosti reported on Monday.

The bill was submitted to parliament by President Putin in late November.

Currently, the penalties for minor corruption crimes include fines and a prison sentence if the guilty party is unable to pay the fine.

The current penalties are insufficiently effective because they don’t take into account character profiles, including financial status and hence the ability or inability to pay fines that are several times larger than bribes. The bill also proposes reducing the minimum fine in bribery cases.

The State Duma committee believes that this bill would increase the effectiveness of fines as a type of penalty in corruption cases and also increase budget revenues.

The bill also proposes introducing alternative punishment for minor corruption crimes, including community labor or a fixed fine plus a three-year ban on holding certain posts or engaging in certain types of activity.

Under the bill, the Code of Criminal Procedure would be augmented with a provision for seizing a suspect’s or a defendant’s property for the duration of a pretrial investigation.